CRAFTERNOON BLOG

Double Martha Week

Ah, the dog days of summer are upon us once again…

But while we were enjoying a minor reprieve from the heat earlier this week, I was lucky enough to get not one but two Martha Stewart Omnimedia shout outs! First my sweet friend Athena Preston posted this great article about Crafternoon on The Crafts Dept blog on Martha’s site. If you have never checked out that blog before, it’s well worth it. The authors are editors for the magazine, and they always post really fun how-to projects and crafting tips.

Then I got back on the air Friday morning on Whole Living with Terri Trespicio on Martha Stewart Radio! (Pictured above is Siobhan, the super nice engineer for the show.) We did a new installment of our ongoing segment, Crafting with Dudes, and it was another successful endeavor. The lovely producer Jennifer Sendrow choose our craft of the day, which was a simple stamping project using real apples.

The dudes did a great job diligently crafting away while Terri and I gabbed about back-to-school crafting ideas. You can see the original project instructions here on Martha’s site.

The end results were really cool little totes, just big enough to carry an apple for the teacher on the first day of school! Living Today engineer Chris Hauselt and Sirius XM web editor Scott Frampton were great sports and artists as always.

This week is going to be busy again for me, so I decided to pre-wrap a birthday present and craft a card for a friend whose day of honor is Thursday. She is from the Bronx, so I made her this pretty paper greeting celebrating her birth borough.

It’s hard to see, but the caption at the bottom of the card says “Bridge Over the Bronx River, New York.” I always buy cool old postcards whenever I run across them. They are usually just one or two dollars, even here in expensive NYC, and they make a great images for cards for any occasion. I love them even more when they have writing on the back of them, like this one does.

There is something magical about old correspondence. I adhere the postcards to whatever paper I’m using with photo corners. This allows the recipient to take the postcard out and read the original message. The old messages give the cards an air of warmth and mystery, and I like how the photo corners look.

Then I wrapped her present, an old book, in pretty paper and a ribbon bow.

I have an impressive stash of ribbon because I always keep ribbon from packages I receive. I think the above ribbon was the standard ribbon that came on a lot of our wedding gifts. Never throw out ribbon! It comes in handy for art projects all the time, and it really makes a present look classy as can be.

I tucked the card under the ribbon and now my gift is all ready for Thursday night’s festivities. I think it almost looks too good to open! I hope your week is filled with crafting, presents and fun for everyone.